Lezyne Classic Floor Drive pump review
[wpcol_2third id=”” class=”” style=””]
Lezyne Classic Floor Drive pump review
Robust, durable, effective and pretty
Posted 31 August 2012
Words by Richard Hallett
The word ‘Classic’ may be widely abused – and misused – but its use by Lezyne in the title of the Classic Floor Drive pump is accurate. After all, if any ‘track’ pump fits the classic definition of the word*, it is this particular Lezyne pump.
Let’s start with the way it is put together. It has a beautifully-finished, varnished wooden T-handle decorated with the Lezyne logo. The handle is firmly attached to a plunger shaft tipped with a steel piston that slides in a steel barrel.
If that sounds like a lot of steel – it’s not. Steel makes for a durable barrel, keeps price down and, when finished in a “premium metallic paint”, looks just fine.
The plunger shaft looks and sounds like it might be aluminium and there’s nothing to say otherwise on the Lezyne website. In any case, its large diameter ensures there is no discernible flex as the handle is pushed down. The handle moves with a smooth, satisfyingly viscous feel and meets just enough resistance to convey some sense of the pressure the pump is generating. Impressively, it feels the same after three years’ active service as when it was box-fresh.
Connection to the tyre valve is made, in this three-year-old example, via Lezyne’s CNC’d aluminium Flip-Thread ‘chuck’. It works with both Presta and Schrader valves thanks to the flippable part, which has Schrader- and Presta-threaded ends. A few seconds are all it takes to unscrew the chuck, flip it and screw it back in… The bit of the chuck assembly permanently attached to the hose has a rotating coupling that allows the chuck to be threaded to the valve without twisting the hose.
The chuck has been upgraded to ‘ABS’ operation on current Lezyne pumps, which means there’s an air bleed button on the chuck that not only allows pressure to be bled down to an accurate figure but, arguably more importantly given the pump’s excellent gauge, allows air pressure in the hose to be released. If there’s one flaw in the older system, it is that air pressure applies a force to the chuck’s rotating coupling that makes it stiff to turn until air compressed in the hose escapes, at which point the chuck unscrews easily.
As it happens, there’s another minor flaw that the ABS system addresses at the same time; the captive O-ring that provides the air seal can be blown out of its groove by high pressure air escaping past as the chuck is unscrewed. Doesn’t happen with the ABS chuck.
For stowage, the chuck sits in a clasp integrated into the cast aluminium foot and relies on the long rubber hose to keep it and the handle in place. Assuring the pump a stable base thanks to its three projections, the foot sits on four small rubber pips intended, perhaps, to protect delicate floor surfaces. Or to prevent the foot slipping in slippery ones… One pip fell out and had to be glued back in to its hole but they have otherwise given no trouble whatsoever.
The gauge, previously described as excellent, sits in the traditional place on the foot. It is, indeed, excellent, being clear, easy to read and consistent. It is also robust and still works well after years of use. It is so accurate that it shows atmospheric pressure – or just under – when not in use.
Maximum pressure, which the pump reaches easily, is stated to be 160psi or 11bar; weight – of little consequence in a pump that will never be carried on the bike – is 1.7kg; and the pump is available in Metallic Black or Pearl White.
It appears to be identical in every respect but finish to Lezyne’s £39.99 Steel Floor Drive pump, which differs in the provision of a black-finished foot and a barrel covered in a grade of paint that presumably doesn’t warrant the ‘premium’ lable of the paint on the Classic. But then the Classic is the one that belongs “to the highest rank or class”.
* “A typical or traditional example of its kind”
Lezyne Classic Floor Drive pump £49.99
[/wpcol_2third] [wpcol_1third_end id=”” class=”” style=””]
[hdp-ad 20]
[hdp-ad 21]
[hdp-ad 22]
[hdp-ad 23]
[hdp-ad 24]
[hdp-ad 25]
[/wpcol_1third_end]
You must be logged in to post a comment.